Wednesday Bolts – 5.18.11

Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com: “At the time, I was kidding. Or exaggerating. At the time, it was the first quarter and Kevin Durant and Dirk Nowitzki were already in double figures and I was tweeting that one of them might just score 50 before this series was done. And then it almost happened. For both of them. In Game 1. When it was over, Nowitzki had 48 points and Durant had 40 and the Dallas Mavericks had a 121-112 victory Tuesday night over the Thunder in the first game of the Western Conference finals, and I was thinking the same thing lots of you were thinking: When’s Game 2?”

Marc Stein of ESPN.com: “It’s all true because Nowitzki, unguardable as he seems, knows better than anyone that he isn’t going to win anything without sustained help, which he needs in this particular series to keep making OKC reluctant to double-team him. He has always been able to tune out the naysayers who’ve questioned his ability to carry a team to a championship because he knows the truth: NBA law may dictate that Nowitzki bears the brunt of the blame for the Mavs’ postseason failures because he is the face of the franchise … but the reality is that no contender has a bigger drop-off from its best player to the rest than this one.”

Dwayne Davis of Urban Tulsa on the criticisms of Russell Westbrook: “You are a ball hog: This is my favorite. You ended the regular season in the top-10 league wide in assists. You have elevated to the top-six in the playoffs. Either you are the sneakiest ball hog ever or someone is doctoring your assists numbers in the books. Anyone who watched the majority of your games the past two years could reveal the truth. Just ask Coach Brooks. He gets it I bet.”

Darnell Mayberry: “Serge Ibaka has to man up. That’s what needs to happen if the Thunder wants to go to the NBA Finals. Getting past these Dallas Mavericks is far more complex than that. But, believe me, it starts there. Ibaka’s defense on Dirk Nowitzki from the opening tip sets the tone for the entire game. It’s a tremendous amount of responsibility, and one that Ibaka’s teammates and coaches will never publicly put on his 21-year-old shoulders. But if Ibaka lets Nowitzki get going early each night like he did in this first game the Thunder will never be able to contain him.”

Jeff Caplan of ESPN Dallas: “The Thunder simply don’t possess a defender to stick on Nowitzki. They used single coverage on Memphis forward Zach Randolph in the previous series, taking their lumps at times but managing to contain him other times. But Randolph didn’t have the shooters to pass out to like Nowitzki, who had four assists, including a late one to Terry for a game-sealing 3-pointer. No one took Tuesday’s beating as badly as 6-foot-10 shot-blocker Ibaka, who was even crushed in his power zone by Nowitzki, four blocks to none. It’s tough to block a 7-footer who shoots a one-legged step-back, Durant noted. Nowitzki’s schooling of Ibaka started 50 seconds in when he drained a 17-footer over him. It was the start of 22 points on 7-of-9 shooting against Ibaka, plus five fouls.”

Zach Lowe of SI: “You could tell the difference in quickness between the Thunder and Lakers, couldn’t you? The close-outs were better, and there were many more instances of a Dallas spot-up guy starting his shooting motion only to close it down at the last second as his defender recovered. Some of the threes Dallas made were tough looks, at least compared to the gimmies it got against Los Angeles.”

Pretty cool comparison of the Thunder to the Magic of the 90s: “Those seeking an example for the potential of a perfect symbiotic relationship between Westbrook and Durant should look no further than Game 7 of the 2011 Western Conference Semifinals against the Memphis Grizzlies. Westbrook was the playmaker. Durant was the scorer. Teams around the NBA would kill to be in the Thunder’s position of possessing two young stars with nearly limitless potential. The Orlando Magic, more than most franchises, can relate to such being in such an envious position. Once upon a time, the Magic were the darlings of the league in the mid-’90s with two young stars en tow — Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway.”

Chris Mannix of SI: “This won’t be an easy series for the Mavs, and they know it. For all of Dirk’s magic, for the 53.4 percent shooting from the floor, the 39.1 percent shooting from the three-point line and the 94.4 percent from the free throw line, Oklahoma City was down just five late in the fourth quarter. There’s no quit in the Thunder, no “just happy to be here” attitude that can affect a young team.”

ESPN Stats and Info: “The Mavericks faced twice as many pick-and-rolls in Game 1 than their previous postseason average. The increase didn’t prevent the Mavs from slowing the Thunder, holding Russell Westbrook to 1-of-12 shooting (8.3 percent) as the pick-and-roll ball handler.”

Tim McMahon of ESPN Dallas: “The Mavericks are 17-0 this season when Nowitzki attempts at least 10 free throws, including 5-0 in the playoffs. He was 24-of-24 from the line in Game 1. He was 13-of-13 in the third quarter, which matched Michael Jordan’s playoff record for free throws made in a quarter. It’s the second time this postseason Nowitzki matched that record, as he went 13-of-13 from the line in the fourth quarter of the series opener against Portland.”

Clark Matthews of The Lost Ogle on Tyson Chandler: “Would the team have been able to make the leap with a battered center taking up the largest chunk of their salary cap, Kevin Durant still playing shooting guard (remember he took off after Scott Brooks shifted him to small forward), no true point guard on the roster, no impact rookie like Harden, and very likely no Serge Ibaka (who would still be playing in Spain since the Thunder had committed to a front court rotation of Chandler-Krstic-Collison)? I doubt it. They might still be good, but they would not be Western Conference finalist good.”

blackngoldthunder :I just looked at the Portland-Dallas series and it seems that they were pretty effective against Dirk…He only shot over 50 percent one game…what did they do that led to this???

@blackngoldthunder

They didn't really do anything special. LaMarcus Aldridge did a pretty solid job on him. Portland has a lot of long, lanky guys and forces you into a slow half-court game. Portland and OKC are about as different as two teams could get. It was really a combination of style of game played and Aldridge, who is a promising young player.

Maynor is going to get less burn when he only had 10 minutes already. And he should split with Westbrook who got destroyed as well by barea. Put Thabo on Barea? Hahahha You guys can still amaze me. haha funny stuff

my last comment... a lot of teams don't figure this out until they have been through the process for a few years... OKC you need to play tough and dirty... MJ learn after a few years fighting Detroit and once he learned who ended up with 6 rings...

we need to focus our defense around everyone else in Dallas... who cares if Dirk scores 50 or 60... if we stop terry and jj the rest of the Dallas team cannot score...

We need to focus on playing our game... besides in Dallas did you expect Dirk not to get all of those foul calls.... please home team ref's. I bet if you check Cuban's payroll you would find their names on it.

Didn't we see a stat yesterday where the Mavs attempted less free throws than anyone this year, or am I making that up? There's a reason why: they are a jump shooting team. Jump shooters don't get very many fouls against them. That's why drove me so crazy last night: Dirk went to the line 24 times, almost exclusively on jump shots or fouls before a shot. We couldn't touch him without a foul called. It was insane. Yeah, we shot 7 more, but that's because we drove to the basket.

If we can't even touch Dirk, then I don't know what our guys can do. Dirk was amazing last night, no doubt. But he didn't need all that extra help.

Deny JJ and Terry the ball. Let everyone else make plays. Play man up on Dirk, deny JJ and Terry, stay home on other shooters. If you go with that recipe the end result is Dirk (maybe) gets 50, JJ+Terry get 20, rest of team springs for 15-20, thats 90 points.

I like it.

Regarding Dirk... i am wondering if giving him just enough room to force him into the jumper is better than playing tight on him and letting him get the fouls and possible drives? thoughts?

How many touches did Dirk get last night. 30? 40? How man total shots did DAL take? 75? 80? So assume Dirk takes 50 or 60% of their shots (because we allow them) and that he makes them at his season average clip of a tad over 50%, then it would be logical to conclude that he has a monster game and nobody else does.

Thats been my point all along. I never said we would have won the game if not for poor officiating, but just because we got bad calls in our favor does not mean that its the same thing, or its acceptable. Our calls were drawn on drives or shots near the rim. Dirk got half of his 15 ft away with his back to the basket. I am really done with talking about officiating in game one... it was terrible, if they call two more fouls for Durant and two less for Dirk then we are all celebrating a win and Dallas is whining about how bad the officiating was, and that fact has been my number one problem with basketball since I started watching it.

Blake Griffin suggests we should not send Dirk to the line just get a hand up in his face. Don't allow him to break free throw records.

But then you risk him killing you from the mid range. Hopefully we can get sefalosha in front of him and muscle him off his spots occasionally and force the rest of the team to beat us. But Dirk isn't the only bad match up, JJ was killing us.

Also, try to force Barea to his right and towards the basline. Dirk sets those picks for him in the same spot every time. Play up on him, all the way past the 3pt line and keep forcing him right. It's the only other way I see to slow down that pick and roll and give the D a chance to rotate.

I still say that Thabo might be better utilized on Barea. Thabo can fight through those screens better than Maynor and offers some length that might bother Barea a little.

I also think it might be wise to play Ibaka on Chandler and allow Nick, Perk and Nazr to take turns fouling Dirk good and hard. For Ibaka to be effective, he needs to play off the ball so he can help and block shots. And how many assists did Barea have last night? ONE. That's right. One.

Make him pass the ball to Chandler or Haywood. Rotate and knock that little squirt into next week!

Yeah I believe that was the strategy early but its easy to get flustered and throw you out of your game plan when someone hits everything they throw up...I must it admit it was pretty amazing to watch as a fan of basketball but as a fan of the thunder....Damn Man

@Sammyit was just weird though, they called a ton of soft stuff, and then Russ goes up for a layup and gets raked across the arms, no call, KD gets pushed by Dirk on a break, no flagrant. It just had no continuity at all

@blackngoldthunderIt looked like that was the strategy early...we were pretty much letting Ibaka go 1-on-1 on Dirk and I don't think Serge did a terrible job. To me, the question about the 48 points is: how many of the ~18 scores (made baskets + fouled in the act of shooting, I'm ignoring the on-the-floor calls) can we just not tolerate? There were a few layups and dunks, but I'm guessing at least 9-10 of them were looks where Brooks thinks, "Well, we'll take that." If you ignore the 48 and just look at the tape, I don't think we have to make huge adjustments on Dirk. Mostly adjust to the refs and close out a little better on the shooters.

@blackngoldthunderI too agree with this strategy. It seemed like we started off doing that last night, and then got away from it more and more as the game went on. need to be more disciplined about it.

@ThunderBelizeI agree with everything your saying...I believe that is our best bet as well to let dirk go for as many as he wants...I would say to take the hawks game plan on the magic and play Dirk straight up like they played Dwight no sagging off of anyone no doubles....We cant let anyone else get off like we did last night.

@Mark!Thanks for the info as well. Thats basically what i thought was the case. I just don't see how the owners can be so nearsighted about the interest of their league. They think suppressing people's opinions and not allowing any form of accountability in the officiating will kill the value of their franchises in the long term. I'm a good example of this (as many of us are): i never watched NBA before i had a team in my city. I didn't see the exact problems i am seeing now, but i think it still was those problems which deterred me from watching. I also don't have any connection to any NFL team, but the difference is that i watch the NFL because i feel like the officials get the right call most of the time. Plus when they don't, the teams have a right to have the play reviewed and overturned. Now, bball is much more complicated due to the pace and the objectivity, but there's got to be a more consistent way of calling games. And the whole superstar treatment is BS, I don't like it with KD any more than i do with players from opposing teams. it makes them soft; they expect the fouls because they always get them. Then suddenly they don't get them, complain, and get frustrated. it cheapens the game. Anywho, i feel like im gettin to the point of whining, so i'll quit. I didn't intend to whine. I just think it is a shame nothing will ever be done about it until it fails completely (just like our economy).

Dirk backs up, KD pushes him to get him off his spot, KD called for the foul. This type of personal foul was called on KD and Collison a lot last night. I thought Collison did the best at guarding Dirk.

I'm surprised so many people are saying they're okay w/ the reffing yesterday. There were some weak shooting foul calls, but I'll agree those fall under superstar calls or w/e. But Dirk had 8 shooting foul calls and 8 personal foul calls, meaning calls before a shot. I couldn't see a foul on most of those. They were soft at best; nonexistent IMO.

Doug Gottlieb on the Animal with Mark. He said Joey Crawford made the 3d quarter unwatchable. He said Dirk gets physical to get to his spot and a Thunder player gets physical to get him off his spot and the Thunder player gets called for a foul. Let them play. He also thinks we should double team Dirk more and let others beat us since the Mavs actually didn't make that many 3s

Well I can't complain about the refs too much. I think there was a few calls against the thunder that were soft calls, but superstars get that treatment. Now what bugs me the most is Dirk dropping the shoulder on KD and only getting a regular foul. I mean the premise of that foul was identical to bynums on JJ that ended up in major fine and suspension. Not saying this was as harsh as that, but it was definitely worth of a F1 call. I am further shocked by the fact that not one review of the game (tv or online) has mentioned it.

As blackandgold said, they played exceptionally well we didn't - not that we played bad, but it certainly wasn't a 'good' game by most standards.

I think the key to stopping them is to cover everyone else and let Dirk go for however many he can get. Swallow his 17 footers isntead of being torched by open look 3's. I would be that if Dirk put up 40 shots and his shooting average was his season typical then we would fare alright. i'd bet money that he won't shoot 85+ % from the floor again. Essentially let him go off for all that he can - maybe that ends up being 50+, but I guarantee that denying his teammates (JJ and Terry especially) the 50+ bench points they had is a better approach than letting them torch you.

Lastly... RW is solid. he played a great game last night, missed some that he normally makes, but he was agressive and for the most part in control. He def doesn't go 3-15 again, but I bet he gets 15+ FTA again.

Like game 2 vs MEM, our strategy will adjust and we will fair very well.

I believe he is appointed by the owners. He essentially works for them.

Think of it this way... you have a lot of people w/ money that want to profit off of a business (the owners). They are willing to pay employees to generate income (players, coaches, etc.) To increase their revenue, they also jointly appoint a committee to oversee the brand as a whole (NBA league office including commissioner).

So long as they're happy w/ the job Stern is doing, I don't think he has a term limit.

@anonymousLOL i didn't realize that Vicks stuff happened the same week as the ref-gate stuff. Interesting, and unfortunate for the real NBA fans out here. I won't get too heavily into it, but i think my fellow American's obsession with image and money over character and responsibility will be our downfall. And the NBA's.

DavyTheWise :I have a question NBA experts. How does the commissioner get in power? is he hired by a committee of the owners or elected or what? Does he have a term? Tenure? I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I think it an absolute shame that coaches, players, and announcers are bullied into not speaking their mind about official in a game… it kind of goes against that whole freedom of speech thing; it turns the NBA into a systemic Fascist Dictatorship with no accountability or credibility in the eyes of many. This hurts the game much more than a few irrational rants from coaches would, and unless something changes, i could see it leading to less and less people interested in watching NBA games. Just one mans opinion. What do you guys think?

Ughh just woke up after falling asleep early (sigh) and as disheartening and discouraging watch this game was...I was really down on myself and the team I was just in a funk...but I came to the realization after watching lowlights over and over again...we are actually in pretty good shape as far as the series goes. Due to the fact that Larry Bird I mean Dirk had the game of his life, JJ "rec league" Barea had the game of his life, Jason "way too much" Terry out performed our whole bench by himself like he said he would, we couldn't lay a finger on dirk with out getting a flagrant foul called on us....with all that said here is our performances, KD had a fairly normal game, russell had the worst game i've seen him play in a very long time, serge played the best defense i seen on somebody that drops damn near 50 on you, james harden had a sub par game to say the least as far as scoring goes. 22 points from our bench wow....Now with that said when a team has so many positives going for them and another team has so many negatives for the game to be as close as it was has to be encouraging for our psyche...if we put together a complete game, i would take our complete game versus there complete game any day of the week. Ok im done venting lol

@DavyTheWiseHis main focus has always been to protect the image of the league. That goes from stopping criticism of officials all the way to making sure inactive players tuck in their shirts on the sidelines. His reaction to the Tim Donaghy scandal showed he has no interest in fixing any of the obvious flaws, just in covering them up. I bet he still thanks Michael Vick every day for getting arrested for dogfighting the same week and throwing the reffing scandal to the back pages.

@anonymousInteresting, thanks for the info. I haven't been around the league long enough to know the difference, but it seems to me like he is strangling it. Surely there is a less sith-lord-like figure out there who can run the league... Can't help but wonder how much corruption there is. Once again, i'm not a conspiracy theorist, but i def think there are some systemic problems limiting the potential of the NBA.

He works for the owners, so I would guess they pick him, I don't know the details of that process though. Also, I'm pretty sure David Stern keeps getting one year contracts, so essentially he could be let go anytime they wanted, although I don't see that happening.

I said I wouldn't read the bolts: too painful. But as the agent told Marcus Dupree about football. It's like an old girlfriend you hate but you secretly really love. That game was painful because we lost but I can't help reading about the thoughts on how we played. Come on Thunder!!!! We can win! I think the longer we can drag this out the better our chances are.

I have a question NBA experts. How does the commissioner get in power? is he hired by a committee of the owners or elected or what? Does he have a term? Tenure? I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I think it an absolute shame that coaches, players, and announcers are bullied into not speaking their mind about official in a game... it kind of goes against that whole freedom of speech thing; it turns the NBA into a systemic Fascist Dictatorship with no accountability or credibility in the eyes of many. This hurts the game much more than a few irrational rants from coaches would, and unless something changes, i could see it leading to less and less people interested in watching NBA games. Just one mans opinion. What do you guys think?

Not that concerned with the fouls - they were consistent and didn't favor either team. It was night and day between that game and the Memphis series though. It'd nice to know such a thing ahead of time.

Anyway, there were two things I was afraid of, that we'd shoot too many 3's and Russ would take those jumpers they gave him. We didn't shoot too many 3's and we were making the ones we shot. Russ didn't shoot too many jumpers, but he missed way too much. I can live with Russ taking 15 shots when he's getting fouled at that rate.

We should have paid a little more attention to Berea and Terry. We could have let Dirk score 48 on 15 shots if we had denied the ball to Terry and defended Berea.

Maynor's footspeed has always made me frown, but it was really a disadvantage last night. I'm not sure how you can sag off a guy like Maynor did, and he still beats you to the rim. Gotta have Eric step up.

Overall I was pleased with our 3 point defense for most of the game, save for an instance or two.